unconscious motives
Buried mental impulses
Unconscious motives are desires, fears, or drives that influence behavior without the person's awareness.
The concept is central to psychoanalytic theory, which holds that much of what we do stems from impulses we don't recognize or acknowledge: His hostility toward authority figures suggested unconscious motives rooted in childhood.
The phrase often implies hidden self-interest or unexamined emotional needs shaping seemingly rational decisions.
- free associationUnfiltered verbal thought flow
- Freudian slipUnconsciously revealing misstatement
- automaticitySelf-generating action capacity
- psychoanalysisTreatment via unconscious exploration
- projectionSomething that extends outward
Freudian theory · dream analysis · id · displacement · blind spot · hidden agenda · repression · attachment styles · sublimation · compulsive behavior · acting out · self-sabotage · superego · Jungian archetypes · habit formation · ego · defense mechanism · internal conflict
- psychoanalysisFreud, id, ego, Sigmund Freud, superego
unconscious, unconsciously, unconsciousness, conscious, consciously, consciousness, conscience, conscientious, conscientiously